


i have found what you are like

by mangemouth



Category: Gintama
Genre: Gen, Joui War, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-16 21:03:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/866580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangemouth/pseuds/mangemouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Joui wars era ficlet. Written for <a href="http://asuka-chan.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://asuka-chan.livejournal.com/"><b>asuka_chan</b></a> and <a href="http://fridge.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://fridge.livejournal.com/"></a><b>fridge</b>, who are certifiable arseholes, and therefore good company.</p>
    </blockquote>





	i have found what you are like

**Author's Note:**

> Joui wars era ficlet. Written for [](http://asuka-chan.livejournal.com/profile)[**asuka_chan**](http://asuka-chan.livejournal.com/) and [](http://fridge.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://fridge.livejournal.com/)**fridge** , who are certifiable arseholes, and therefore good company.

"Ahahaha! Gintoki, look, ahaha!" laughs Sakamoto, high up on a rock, hands on bare hips. A scar from a battle past [who can even guess which] crisscrosses around one side of his stomach, distracting and colourless. They all have them; little, hairline scrapes, long, big gashes, any size or shape [foreign wounds from foreign weapons].

Floating on his back in the water, Gintoki shades his eyes to look up at the other man. It seems like Sakamoto is always seeking higher places, these days. "Ahhh, impressive. You're as skilled _and_ as ugly as a mountain goat."

"Ahaha, whaaat!"

"Do you have to be so loud, Sakamoto," murmurs a new voice from the banks of the river. Katsura appears out of the undergrowth, a worn looking basket full of blood and grime smeared clothes under one arm. After wedging the basket between a few rocks, he calmly unties his haori and sheds his kimono, kneeling on the bank to wash them first. Gintoki's gaze wanders over Katsura's new scars, too [lingering on the scarlet-grey bandage of a fresh wound on his shoulder- when did that happen? Why didn't he _know_ when it happened?].

"Hahaha, don't be so glum!" crows Sakamoto from his perch above the water. He almost loses his footing and flails spectacularly, and the corner of Katsura's mouth twists a little. It's the closest he comes to a smile anymore, thinks Gintoki [but he consciously forgets the notion as soon as it comes to him; he's not supposed to look at those scars]. "Katsura! Katsuraaa! Watch!"

"Is he five?" Katsura sighs to the white-haired man, but he watches anyway [Sakamoto may be a sky-staring idiot, but it is his laughter they lean on when battling, day in and day out, squeezes their own vocal chords too tight to chuckle].

After he's sure all eyes are on him, the tallest man executes a clumsy belly flop, sending waves that rock Gintoki where he floats, and Katsura tsks [amused even if he doesn't show it]. With precise, business-like hand motions, he washes and wrings the blood out from a comrade's yukata, crimson clouds eking out and dispersing slowly in the cold, fresh water. "What?" asks the other swordsman, voice calm and quiet, and Gintoki realises he's been staring at that fresh wound again.

"Ahahaha, this is gonna be good! Watch! Katsura!"

"I'm watching."

Gintoki lets his eyelids fall closed, as if they are suddenly heavy from the sun's rays. A big splash comes from his right. "You should wash that out while you're at it," he mumbles, chin nodding to the other's shoulder. Katsura shakes his head, tucking errant hair behind his ear. "Later," he says, motioning vaguely to the overflowing basket. He looks unkempt and exhausted [Katsura _cares_ far too much, for everyone and everything, and it is starting to show]. "I need to finish this. We have to break camp by nightfall, and it's too dangerous to stay along the river, so who knows when we'll have a chance at something clean again. We might have to leave even sooner, one of the scouts reported-"

"Shut up," decides Gintoki. "Not later." He rolls off his back, swimming to the bank and snatching away the clean yukata, tossing it on a rock. Ignoring Katsura's protests, he pulls the other by the elbow further into the water.

"Heyyy!" cries Sakamoto again, from even higher up. "Hahaha! Watch!"

"I'm watching," Katsura calls back absently, but this time he isn't. After moving the long black hair aside, Gintoki unwinds the filthy bandages carefully from the other's shoulder, letting them drop to the river in limp coils. The black-haired man holds himself very still so as not to wince [the rigidness of his posture honestly giving far more away than a flinch would].

The wound is worse than he thought; the stitches, shoddy and rushed in the first place, are no longer holding the jagged, torn skin together, and a weird, crusting ooze has collected around the rim of the wide gash. The skin around it is hot to the touch, and when Gintoki experimentally presses a thumb just under it, Katsura's posture tightens even further. "This is bad," the taller swordsman mutters, and Katsura doesn't reply [they all have their pride, even here]. Gintoki cups up water in his hands, letting it run through his fingers and sluice down the wound in rivulets, washing away the stains of sticky, dried blood [washing away the grime that Katsura hates, and the hurt Katsura endures].

Although he thumbs at the gash as gently as possible, the long-haired man still breathes shallowly at every touch, body taunt. Pausing in his motions, Gintoki's eyebrows suddenly knit. "Why are you the one washing all those stupid clothes? You should be letting this heal."

Katsura's voice is tight when he replies. "It's fine, Gintoki-"

"Shut up, Zura."

"It's not Zura, it's Katsura."

"Ahaha, heyyyy!"

"I'm watching!"

"This is probably halfway to _gangrene,_ who the hell told you to-"

"No one told me to, but no one else would have done it-"

"So why do _you_ have to be the sucker-"

"With morale so low, someone needs to step up and-"

"You are not a damn one-man army, Zura-"

" _It's not Zura, it's-_ "

" _YEEOW!_ OW, OW, HAHAHA!"

Both men look up, and Katsura calls anxiously, "Sakamoto?"

"Ahaha! There's a huge water snake over here!"

"Damnit, you killed that joke!"

"No, ahaha! Ow! Really, it's, WOW, hahaha-" Sakamoto's laughter cuts off into a yelp of pain, and Katsura heaves a put-upon sigh, shoving Gintoki away with a firm palm. Gintoki hesitates, but swims off towards the idiot.

Wresting the snake from Sakamoto's big toe takes much longer than expected, a fact which Katsura observes with another twitch at the corner of his mouth when they return looking as if they fought a hundred Amanto each, underwater. He's back up on the bank, kneeling next to a pile of washed clothes with a kimono in his hands, overtly blank expression daring Gintoki to say something. Two sets of eyes narrow. That wigged moron, Sakata Gintoki doesn't need to be dared, like _hell_ has he ever-

"Gintoki tamed my big water snake, ahahaha!" supplies Sakamoto, breaking the tension.

" _Damnit,_ you asshole, you _killed_ that joke!"

Katsura turns his face to the side, coughing, his version of a belly laugh, and Gintoki feels the peace of normality [or whatever passes for it] return. Katsura will always care too much, just as Sakamoto will always be an idiot. To get angry at them for who they are is a waste of time, and not the kind of wholesome time-wasting Gintoki enjoys.

The two taller men sit down on the sun-warmed rocks next to their long-haired companion. Laughing all the while, Sakamoto begins to recount Gintoki’s failure to charm his enormous snake [“ _God damnit,_ Sakamoto, killed! _Killed!_ ], Katsura needing to cough in response quite often. His ugly wound is airing, already looking better for the cleansing.

For his part, Gintoki grabs a familiar haori out of the shabby old basket, and begins to wash it. The blood is purged from the cloth, murky scarlet giving way to pure, untainted white.


End file.
